Kickin' Butt and Savin' Frogs
by Skchuu
Summary: A surprise frog dissection in their remedial biology class brings together two former rivals in ways they never expected! Slash, Kodd, rated M for language.
1. Chapter 1 Froggy Rescue!

KICKIN BUTT AND SAVIN' FROGS

BY KCHUU & SKETCHY THE SCRIBBLER

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Hey all you Kodd fans! Kchuu and Sketchy here! This is our first fic posting here, although we've been working on this story for a while. When we wrote it, it was in an RP style, and we had to change it so it fit into a fanfic format. This should explain the point of view jumping back and forth between characters a lot. This is set in the X-Men Evolution Universe, roughly mid-season two (after Tabitha joins the B-hood). Please note that this is not a pairing at all in the canon -after- season two, yes, we totally screwed with the rest of the plot. But hey, you fanfic readers like that, right? We know -we- do!! Enjoy!

Rated M for language.

(BTW, we know we don't own Marvel or these awesome boys or anything, so no suing us plz)

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Kurt stared intently at the jumble of words and pictures on the paper in front of him. His mind tried to connect the complex Latin words to the areas of the skeleton diagram... But he knew he was going to fail this quiz... If only his image inducer hadn't been malfunctioning the day of the frog dissection, he wouldn't have to be in this silly remedial class! He scratched the hidden fur on the back of his arm idly as he turned his gaze back to the words...

"So the mucus glands.... connect..... Ach, this is too hard..." Kurt muttered in exasperation.

Todd's face was planted firmly into the table in front of him. It just figured that he'd been made to sit next to Fuzzy in this hell. Todd had been given a choice, remedial biology or detention: he'd chosen the first option and regretted it intensely. The mutterings of the person next to him made no sense, they didn't even NEED to know how a frogs mucus glands worked. After all, it's not like the alcohol soaked amphibians would ever secrete it again. The book gave more information than the teacher even wanted them to know.

"Would you shut up already, yo?" He growled at the X-geek, words muffled by the table.

Kurt rolled his eyes. Todd Tolensky. Toad. The froggy underclassmen who, together with his 'brotherhood' of losers, tried to make Kurt's life a living nightmare. He turned to reply, and his nose instantly wrinkled in disgust. His nemesis' words were muffled by the table, but his stench could not be ignored. And the teacher had to sit them right next to each other, in the back of the classroom!

"Unlike some people, I am here to -learn-, slimeball. Now if you vould just let me study in peace... I'm actually trying to -pass- this quiz." Kurt spat the words like insults. He'd spent more time wrestling this kid into submission than was proper or necessary, and he didn't want the slimy mutant messing with even more of his free time... especially time he needed to study for his worst class.

Todd turned his head to glare at the currently not-so-fuzzy annoyance.

"The fuck? This shit is easy, I don't NEED to study tah get a better grade than you on this crap." Todd turned his head back into the table, starting to close his eyes to try and nap. When he suddenly remembered that a few mere hours ago a sterile, dead, and quite possibly pregnant frog (From what he had heard, many had been carrying eggs) had been sliced open and guts pulled out with pliers and scalpels. His head shot up as he quickly decided this table was not appealing to sleep on.

"Alright, don't study, but quit ... spazzing around. It smells bad enough in here vithout you waving your greasy hair all over the place." He glanced at his inducer-watch... When was the teacher going to get here? He had a danger room session at 3:30, and while being bossed around by Scott for hours wasn't exactly fun, it was a heck of a lot better than being holed up in this stuffy, smelly room with the Toad.

Todd frowned. Why the heck was fuzzy even here? With that 'Study now, verbally abuse rival later' attitude, he should have done just fine with the dissection. Unless he was squeamish or something, but that same attitude proved they were there for very different reasons.

"At least I don't have a mustache all over my freakin' body. Tell yah what yah furry gecko, you go home an' study your fucking murder book there, that way my hair don't bother yah!"

Kurt shot Todd a look of contempt.

"I missed a class, okay, I have to be here! And enemies or not -this is not the place to be talking about that!- Unless you vant to end up like one of your froggy friends in this book!" The last part excaped his lips in a hiss. Owch. That moustache comment was low. Especially from a guy who had roughly the complexion of a booger.

Todd blanched, Kurts words had sent Todds thoughts off in a direction he had been trying to avoid all day. He had been in class the day of the mutilations. He had seen a few eager boys starting to grab those sick little knives so they could cut the dead amphibians open. Girls squealed in revulsion, and it took all Todd had to not imagine it was him pinned down to that cutting board. Now Kurt had reminded him of it, and that sickening image made him do exactly what he had done last time.

"I gotta get outta here." Todd stood suddenly, the chair falling over in his haste. "I gotta get the hell outta this room!"

Kurt smirked at first, but then his eyebrows twitched in concern. Todd looked like he was about to hurl. He was going to say something, when the teacher entered.

"Take your seats, class." The teacher, a too-skinny, too-primped woman of about 50, strode over and set her books on the desk. "That means you, Tolensky. Don't make me give you detention in addition to your remedial work!" She glared sharply at the paler-than-usual boy.

Todd, eyes wide and breathing hard, simply gave a hateful glare at the teacher.

"Oh yeah, detention, how will I ever survive, yo?" Despite his panic, he had the sense to not provoke the teacher too much. He quickly turned his chair right way up and plopped down on it, scooting as far away from the table as physically possible. His eyes darted around, was it just him, or did the air smell of rubbing alcohol?

The teacher rummaged under the desk.

"Since all of you were absent or refused to participate in today's dissection.... unf." With a grunt of exertion, she plopped a large, clear tank onto her desk. In it, 4 or 5 frogs were suspended in formaldehyde. "We're lucky the school had enough leftovers for you all... Though you'll have to work in pairs." Kurt had to admit, his stomach turned a bit at the sight of those dead animals, and the smell of the chemicals invading his nose made his head spin. He glanced over at the Toad, feeling a small pinch of pity despite himself.

Todd was frozen in place. There they were, bodies of the innocent floating in the death fluid people claimed kept them 'sterile'. It was too much to bear, seeing them with eyes filmed over, once strong leg muscles floating limply. When Todd finally did regain his voice, only one sentence found its way out.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

The teacher had been shuffling under her desk for the tool kits. At the freshman's outburst, she smacked her head on the desk. She staggered to her feet, an expression of pure rage on her face. But the boy who had yelled the offending comment was nowhere to be seen.

"Tolensky?! TOLENSKY! Get back here THIS INSTANT!" She whirled around, looking for the stinking delinquent... But neither he nor Wagner were anywhere to be seen.

The stench of sulfur consumed the overly clean odor of death that Todd had smelled before. For a second he didn't know what happened, the room was spinning and he felt lightheaded. Suddenly he realized that he was now in the mens restroom, the one two halls away from the biology room. A soft, furry touch on his arm alerted him to the hand holding his now quivering limb. He stared at the floor, trying to get his breathing into a normal pattern.

"Why'd you do that, Wagner?"

Kurt thought about it. Why did he teleport? He panicked. He hated to see someone ostracized, targeted, just for being a certain way... Even if the one singled out -was- Tolensky. "I... I didn't vant to be graded by a teacher that riled up... And plus, I vasn't particularly excited by the idea of cutting up little dead things, anyway..." He held up his human hands, with their barely disguised, awkward fingers. "I'm not exactly built for... fine motor dexterity, ja?"

Todd gave a weak chuckle. "'Ja', I can see that, yo." He looked at the other side of the room, not so much to see anything there as to avoid Kurt's eyes. He could feel his chest constricting painfully, and he cursed at himself. In any other situation he would be putting the X-geek down for even thinking of helping him, but right now all he could think about were those corpses. "Doesn't...Doesn't it seem wrong, yo? What they're doing in there?"

"I mean, I can see -vhy- they do it... For the students to learn about anatomy, and vhateveh... But somehow, it does seem wrong." A flash of memory tugged at Kurt's brain. Tubes... lots of tubes. Inside him? And blinking monitors... and that man with the mask--He snapped back to the present. Where he was. Who he was talking to. "But... you don't need to be such a pussy about it, okay? Either suck it up and do it, or don't go. There's no need to make the administration take more notice of us than they do already."

Todd's head shot around to glare at Kurt, angry at the 'pussy' comment, and the fact that the fuzzy boy didn't get it.

"It doesn't matteh who does it, yo. What mattehs is that those pricks in there see those frogs as disposable, worth less than dirt. I can get eating frogs legs, gross as it is, because there's a PURPOSE to that shit. But in there they--they just rip them apart to see what's inside! They don't care if those frogs had a soul, or hope or happyness!"

Kurt leaned against the wall, suddenly very uncomfortable. It had been a bad idea to 'port them to such close quarters, especially with the other mutant being in such a volatile state. "Vell.... Sometimes, that's just the way the vorld is, Toad." Kurt said bitterly. "The strong people pick on the weak. If a guy in a lab thinks it's a good idea for high schoolers to kill a bunch of frogs, then teachers vill do it. If a politician thinks that some people should be segregated... then people vill follow him. If a guy looks different from other people, goes against the grain... " Kurt fidgeted with his inducer. "... I don't even know vhy I brought you here. I've got a danger room session to get to--" he moved as if to bamf away..

Todd instinctivly lunged at Kurt, grabbing the boys shirt and pulling him down to stare right into his eyes.

"Don't you give me that crap, too, Fuzzy, 'that's just how it is' doesn't justify anythin'! It don't justify excluding people, it don't justify ruining every fucking second of someones life, and it sure as hell doesn't justify murder!" Todd pushed Kurt away, angry and looking like he wanted to kick the heck out of something. "Isn't that what all you geeks up in that mansion think? Or are you telling me that I believe more in your motto than you do?!"

"Verdammt, Toad!" Kurt smacked his fist into the wall, cracking two of the off-white tiles. His tail, unraveled from around his waist, arced out from his pants and twitched angrily. "You think that's how I VANT it to be? That's vhy I'm fighting with the X-men! To try and make it so that the minority von't be persecuted anymore! But if I'm discovered, if I keep making scenes and using my powers stupidly like your brotherhood does, that could be -me- being experimented on! Sometimes it's best to just blend in... No amount of anger or shouting vill save those poor frogs anyway, now..."

"At least I'm fucking trying!" Todd yelled, "Even if they're dead, at least someone gave enough of a damn to give them an ounce of respect!" He stared, half at Kurt, half into space. "At least one person tried, at least just one." That was more than he had ever been given. He snapped out of his half daze, anger welling up and focusing on the tailed mutant before him. "At least ONE FUCKING PERSON cared more about them than A STUPID BIOLOGY QUIZ!"

"So vhat are you going to do about it?! Go get those frogs out of that tank? And get yourself suspended?! And vhat vould that do? Vould that really make you feel that much better?! The frogs would still be dead!" Kurt's body automatically shifted into his normal, leaning forward pose. Inhibitions gone, his tail whipped, and the unseen hair on his neck rose as his muscles tensed for an altercation.

Todd gave a strangled screech, lunging at Kurt full force and slamming into him. They landed on the floor with a thud, and Todd started fighting to stay on top of their two man dog pile.

"QUIT ACTIN' LIKE THEY DON'T MATTEH!"

Kurt struggled, arms and legs flailing violently. He managed to flip himself on top, and held Todd's shoulders to the cold tile.

"Quit acting like nothing else matters!!!" His last word was cut off abruptly as Todd's fist connected with his cheek.

Todd took advantage of the split second it took Kurt to recover from the blow; he gathered his legs up and kicked the X-man off of him, quickly following him and forcing himself on top again.

"None of you fucking X-men get it, you don't know what it's like to have no one care if you're alive or not!"

Kurt froze. He stared up into the other boy's pained amber eyes. Somewhere in the fighting, his image inducer had fizzled out, and he felt like those amber eyes were staring through his yellow ones and right into his core. A shudder passed through his body at those words, be it of pity or sadness or something else he didn't know, and he scooted slightly backwards. The other boy was still on him, but his own fuzzy back was up against the bottom of the bathroom stall and their faces were at the same level. Kurt just looked at him, speechless. He's right, Kurt didn't know what that felt like. He'd been lucky to have great foster parents, and now a group of classmates who cared about him... but Todd...

Todd didn't know why he said that, especially to Wagner; because as true as it was, he still hated to think about it. Yet those frogs in that tank, they reminded him so much of himself. Strange, hated, useless, and disposable. Those frogs had come into the world with no chance in life, they'd die alone and be cut up for science, the same future he saw for himself.

"No one cares about what happens to me, yo, and no one ever will." Dragging his now all too heavy body up off of Kurt, he struggled to find a position to stand in the cramped stall, avoiding Kurts eyes all the while. "I'm not gonna let those frogs be the same, expelled or not, I'm gonna give them some kinda funeral. They deserve that much."

Kurt half-leaned on the stall door, head still spinning. He hated to admit it, but Todd was right. What kind of X-man could he really be if he just let injustice stand? Those comments his rival had uttered hurt so much because they were true. He closed his eyes, and stood in a languid motion. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then turned to face the shorter boy. "Vhat the hell. Let's do it."

Todd stared at Kurt, he must have heard wrong. "You wanna help, yo?"

"Sure. I normally vould take any excuse to get as far away as I could from the Brotherhood's delinquent crap, but you've got a point." Kurt felt his pride deflate with this admitted defeat, and he grit his teeth. "I don't like saying this, but vhat kind of X-Man would let innocent lives be disrespected like this..." --unglaublich! saying this... to the TOAD....-- "....That teacher has it coming, anyway." A corner of his mouth pulled up into a rogueish smile. He never could resist a bit of adventure.

Todd just blinked for a moment, then slowly a smile spread across his face.

"Alright! Let's go save some frog souls, yo!" He was about to open the stall when he noticed something. "Er, Fuzzball, you might wanna fix yo' holo-watch thing first."


	2. Chapter 2 In which Todd looks gay

Hey! Kchuu and Sketchy here again. Here's the second chapter :] In which Kurt is gay and Todd seems really gay. Rated M for language, nothing too mature in this chapter. Thanks for reading!! And a shoutout to Jessica499499, we really love your fics, and are glad you like ours!! Thanks for reviewing :]

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Two sets of eyes peeked in through a narrow outdoor window. Kurt clung to the wall, about 50 feet off the ground, and the younger boy crouched on his shoulders, webbed fingers grabbing on to the windowsill. He was surprisingly light... Well, maybe not surprisingly, most of his meals seemed to consist of bugs...

"So, how are ve going to pull zis off? She's already given the poor slimey doods to the kids! This is no longer a 'port in, 'port out operation!"

"Jus' let me be the distraction, yo, an' when everyones busy you just port in and get those frogs." Todd crept off of Kurt's back onto the wall. He could stick to areas like this for a little while, but not in the same way Kurt could. If Todd tried to stick to this wall for more than a few minutes, he would lose his grip and fall to the ground below. Not wasting the little time he had, he crawled to the area opposite of Kurt. If someone from the ground had looked up then, it would look like Todd was hanging onto the window sill instead of sticking to the wall in general.

"Okay Fuzzy, you better port to the hall outside the classroom, as soon as their attention is on me, 'port around and snatch those frogs like crazy. The most time I can get you is two minutes."

"Got it." Kurt shot him a grin. "Break a leg, ja?" With that, he was gone in a flash of purple smoke. He reappeared in the hallway seconds later, the familiar scent of brimstone in his nostrils. He crept over to the small window in the door, readying himself. All over the room, the kids, mostly delinquents and truants, poised their scalpels over the bloated bodies of the chemical-soaked amphibians. They were gonna have to do this fast!

Todd took a huge breath, then shouted at the top of his lungs,

"Help! Dear God why did I do this?!"

He could hear the room through the window go deadly silent, then a large number of thuds that signaled the class gathering outside the window, the window opened and the teacher stuck out here head, a shocked expression on her face.

"Mr. Tolensky?! What are you doing?!" Todd did his best to looked scared and answered

"I snuck out here after you brought the frogs out, I just built up the nerve to climb down but theres no footholds yo! I'm gonna fall!" Todd faked a half-slip, like he was loosing his grip, and gave a false shriek. He seriously hoped Kurt could do his part quick and while he was screamin' his lungs out, otherwise people would notice the quiet 'bamf's.'

Kurt quickly ported to the back of the room. Unghh. His stomach churned. He knew that he was using his powers too much in such a short time, but he wasn't prepared for the wave of nausea that overtook him. It must be 'porting with two people... _If I try it again, I might faint!!_

Kurt looked around frantically. All the other kids were by the windows, looking at the hapless teen screaming his lungs out. Fuzzy fingers quickly grabbed two frogs from the area around him. Kurt quickly ran around, sweeping slimy bodies off of tables... now only one was left. As he passed the last table, the teacher's desk, grabbing at the last unfortunate victim, his foot slid on a spill on the tile floor. Grabbing desperately to right himself, arms already full, he whipped out his tail to grab the last frog. As he did so, a beaker crashed to the ground. Kurt froze as the students turned at the noise.  
_  
Mein Gott!! mein tail is out mein tail is outtttt!!_

Todd had heard the beaker crash, he knew that as soon as the teacher turned around it was all over, if a student hadn't already. He could think of only one thing to do. He needed to help those frogs, help Kurt, and the only option he had was to be drastic.

"Aaah!" He let go of the edge, kicking off the wall at the same time, and let himself fall.

In a way it was lucky he was used to being tossed into trash cans and bushes by Duncan and the other jocks, because it had taught Todd how to fall without seriously hurting himself. Granted, he had never fallen from the second floor of a building before, but similar principles were involved. The only thought he could sort out was that Fuzzy needed to get out of that room before the shock of seeing him fall wore off the people by the window.

Kurt's ears pricked at the sound of Todd's yell. He felt more than heard his accomplice fall, and he knew there was only one option. He made sure he was holding the frogs securely, and with all the strength he could muster, 'ported. In midair, he appeared over Todd. In another second, they were gone. The moment the boy had dropped, chaos broke out in the room. The teacher ran to dial 911, and most of the students were making a beeline into the hallway. They wanted to be the first to see whether the stinky kid had splattered on the ground like the bugs he was so often seen munching on. But when they got to the lawn out front, there was no body to be found in the grass. A couple miles to the west, in the woods near the Xavier Institute, however, there were two.

Todd gasped for air, one second there had been the sky, then Kurt had come out of nowhere just as the teacher turned around, then there was a dense canopy of leaves and the sensation of a body on top of him. Kurt thrashed around for a moment, as if in pain, his eyes darted to and fro, and he was panting heavily. Todd tried to ignore the sharp pain in his left shoulder as he tried to prop Kurt and himself up into a sitting position.

"Fuzzy?! Are you okay dawg?!" In the back of his mind he noticed that Kurt had dropped all of the frogs onto the grass, but for some reason that was less important right now.

Kurt sagged against the body in front of him. He struggled to keep from blacking out. Although, with his face in this warm shoulder, maybe letting his mind go blank for a while was't so bad.... His eyes rolled back into his head.

"F-Fuzzy? Wagner? KURT?!" Todd's voice was almost pleading for the other boy to wake up. He took a quick look around, trying to get his bearings and not panic. Okay, he knew this area, it was pretty close to Baldy's school thing. He had five dead frogs and one possibly dying fuzzball to worry about. Priorities came first. He flipped Kurt off of him and onto the grass, slightly suprised at how light he was. He tried to remember everything they had taught in health class, or everything he hadn't slept through. He gave Kurt a quick look over, he was breathing, that was good. He also didn't seem to have any actual injuries, but wait, that blasted holo-watch was still on. Todd practically ripped the clunky object off of Kurt's wrist, and the pale human disguise faded away to show the furry blue person that Kurt was.

Todd hesitated, WAS Kurt breathing? What if that damn watch faked the chest movement from earlier? He leaned down to Kurt's face, trying to feel or hear breathing. He couldn't hear anything.

"Damn it! How did that CPR crap go?" Todd grabbed Kurt's chin, tilting the boys head up slightly. He wished he could mentally prepare himself for this, but he needed to get Fuzzy breathing while he still remembered how to hold the head so airflow would work. He leaned down and put his lips over Kurt's, a small part of his brain registering that the blue boys lips were very soft, while the majority of said brain was trying to watch Kurt's chest for the rise and fall that signaled a correct 'breath'.

Kurt's mind was, well, fuzzy. The first things he registered were a sick feeling in his gut... And a pulsing warmth on his mouth. His eyelids fluttered open, his long blue eyelashes parting to show... TODD?! KISSING HIS MOUTH?! His mind jolted back to earth all at once. His chest spasmed with quick air intake, and he yanked himself up into a sitting position, his hands on the frog-boy's shoulders. The quick movement made him swoon momentarily, and then he slowly found the strength in his arms to push... Pulling their lips apart.

"Oh thank God." Todd gulped out, "I thought you went and killed yo'self Fuzzy."

Kurt looked at him, stunned. His lips still throbbed with the recent contact, and he was pretty sure his face was crimson under the fur.

"V-vhy... I......" The memories came back in a jumbled rush.

"I... Oh. It sometimes... just takes a while to recover after I 'port a lot... that's all..." He averted his eyes, turning his torso away from the boy slightly.

Todd's brow furrowed at that.

"So..You're tellin' me that you didn't need..." Todd suddenly jerked away from Kurt, face red and eyes wide. "B-but yo' weren't breathin! You can't just temporarily stop breathin yo!"

"V-vell... I... I don't know..." Kurt looked around for a distraction. "Oh! the frogs!" He began picking up the floppy, thawed bodies scattered about in the grass.

It finally hit Todd that he had barely given the poor dead amphibians a glance after Kurt had 'ported them here. He looked guiltily towards the two closest to him, then picked them up gently. He could feel them still damp with chemicals, and he tried to hold them as tenderly as possible. These creatures had been through enough, they didn't need their corpses manhandled. As he reached for a third frog his hand met with another one, though this one had three blue fingers. Todd pulled away quickly, face becoming a deeper shade of red. He tried to appear fascinated by a nearby bush.

"S-so Fuzzball, is there anywhere near here we can bury these guys?"

Kurt felt a tingle run up his arm from where the other boy had touched his hand. Sure, he was still woozy.... But that kind of feeling couldn't be normal....

"Ach.... Vell.... zere's a stream over here... how about ve bury them by the river side?" He stood, pointing in the direction of the stream. But this movement was too fast, and his knees buckled.

Not even thinking about it, Todd reached out with his free arm to catch Kurt as he fell, the result was Todd having his arm tightly wound around Kurt's waist to support him. Suddenly realizing what he was doing, Todd looked away, faking a cough. He could feel his face being practically on fire, and he couldn't help but notice how well his arm fit around Kurt's slim waist.

"S-stream huh? Th-that sounds good yo', just don't fall on the way there."

The amount of comfort Kurt felt with Todd's arm around his waist was uncanny. No one touched him like that, not even his friends... Even Kitty flinched when she brushed the fur on his arm. But with Todd, the instinct to catch him seemed so... natural. He let himself relax for a moment, and then his head cleared. He abruptly stood to his full height, gave a half-embarrassed, half-shocked look at Todd, and started off towards the stream. He was too flustered to say anything. Showing such weakness... To his nemesis, of all people!!

Todd stared at the ground intently, slowly following Kurt towards the stream. The grass around here was a bright, natural green, and the water was clear, sparkling in the sunlight. This would be a great place to put the frogs to rest. Heck, Todd thought HE might like to be buried here, that is, if anyone decided to go to the trouble of digging him a hole... He snuck a look at Kurt, fate had decided that it wanted to make Todd look as gay as physically possible today, first with the CPR thing, then the 'arm round waist' bit, he could only guess what next. Todd looked back at the stream again.

Sure he wasn't the straightest guy around, in fact he had admitted to himself months ago that there was a big possibility he was bisexual, but that didn't mean he had designs on FUZZY of all people. Sure Kurt was nice enough, and Todd actually thought the fur looked attractive on the X-man--which he would never admit to thinking... But Kurt also hated his guts, and had made that fact very clear. Todd frowned, deep in thought now. Didn't Fuzzy like that Pryde girl? The one that Lance was constantly breaking up and getting back together with?

Kurt knelt, and set the frogs gently in a pile. He started digging a hole in silence. His thoughts were loud enough without any other noise, and if he opened his mouth, who knew what would tumble out... He had known, since he was very young, that he didn't feel the same way as other people. While the 'normal' boys would chase girls around, Kurt found himself wanting to be chased. He liked girls, and he liked being friends with them, but... What was he saying. A fuzzy blue demon who was queer?! Just add another line to the abnormal column... Thick clods of mud slipped through his fingers as he worked furiously, deepening the hole.

Kurt's move towards the ground snapped Todd out of his thoughts. Oh right, frog graves. He knelt down about a foot away from Kurt, and started digging his own holes for the frogs. He gave a hiss at the painful sensation of his hand meeting a solid object. He turned his hand 'round to inspect it.

"Damn yo, that was fast." The palm of his hand was cracked and bleeding, the area that wasn't like that was unbearably dry. Todd's skin had always worked a bit differently, touching rubbing alcohol or any substance that could dry out a normal complexion would damage his own like crazy. The tiny amount of formaldehyde that had been on the frogs he'd picked up a second ago had almost instantly parched any skin it had had come in contact with. Now the grand total for the day was a shot shoulder muscle, bleeding hands, and looking extremely queer. Super, just super.

Kurt was brought out of his thoughts by Todd's hiss of pain. Turning around, he found himself nearly face-to-face with the injured teen. Kurt instinctively reached up a hand to Todd's.

"Ach, that looks bad... You probably got some chemicals on it or something..." Without thinking, he stooped his head and pressed his mouth to the cut. He licked his slightly rough, cat-like tongue over the wound, cleaning it as he always did his own.

Todd's voice gave a squeak.

"W-what the hell are yah doin'?" Todd's cracked hands were soaking up the moisture Kurt was giving them like crazy, and the pain was ebbing away. That did not however, change the fact that KURT WAS LICKING HIM. The bad part about that wasn't that Todd didn't like it, on the contrary, he liked this feeling way too much, and it was scaring him how much he wanted that rough tongue to move past his hands and nurse the old scars hidden under his wrist cuffs.

Kurt jerked his head back.

"Ach!! Mein Gott! S-sorry, I just reacted... It looked painful, and I thought...." he quickly turned away. "J-just leave the digging to me, okay?" he quickly made the hole deep enough, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible... This feeling of comfort... of, cameraderie, almost... was too weird. He had to get out of there, before these confusing feelings got any stronger.

"O-okay fuzzball." The normal amount of taunting that came with the nick-names wasn't present this time. Todd felt embarresed and oddly needy for more of that soft touching Kurt had been doing on him. Was he feeling attracted to Fuzzy? No, no way, this was his RIVAL for Christs sake, he couldn't have romantic feelings for him! Could he? Todd's mind wandered yet again. Thinking this time about what was supposed to have been CPR, but it hadn't been that since Kurt had apparently been breathing. His brain suddenly brought up something he didn't want to consider, but since his brain could care less about what he wanted, the thought became words directed towards Fuzzy. "Hey, um, Kurt? If what I did back there wasn't CPR then....Was it, yah know, kinda like a...a kiss?"

It took a moment for Kurt to register what was just said. Like a kiss.... More like his FIRST kiss! Kurt's blood ran cold.

_Mein first kiss.... vith a dood?! ........Someone.... Kissed me...._ Kurt pushed the thoughts away, picking up a frog and laying it in the hole.

"Vell... It VAS an accident, vasn't it? If you didn't mean it.... It vasn't really a kiss, right?"

Todd cursed his stupid brain for making him ask that, but it was all okay, as long as he stayed cool and his brain didn't make him say something stupid aga--

"Haha, guess so yo. Good thing too, woulda been my first kiss." _Damnit._

"Haha, really? Mein, too!" _Verdammt!!_ How could he let something like that slip!? Quick, another distraction, anything!

"Uh... do you vant to say a few words or something before I cover zem up?" He straightened into a standing position by the now frog-filled hole.

Todd's brain finally consented to his control at the mention of the frogs.

"Yeah yo, I'd like tah say sumtin'" Todd got to his feet and attempted to have good posture for a moment, standing up straight, his feet turned neither in nor out. He cleared his throat and began what he considered a rather lame speech.

"I know you guys weren't sentient or whateveh' but I think you should know sum things." Todd turned his head towards the ground, voice loud and clear despite the almost prayer-like posture.

"All of yo never got what you deserved, yah were probably born in a tank somewhere and got shipped to some school as soon as you lost yer tails. It wasn't fair that you never got a chance to live, to see the kind of place you were supposed to be in." He raised his head, looking out at the stream, "But now you're where yer supposed to be yo. The grass, the water, heck, I bet there are sum real tastey flies around here! This is your place now, an' even if yah can't see it, I'll tell yah right now that it's beautiful, an' it's happy you came home." Todd's smile suddenly faltered as he remembered that Kurt was right over there, watching him and hearing every weirdo word he said. He turned slightly away from the X-man and said, "That's all I got yo."

Kurt clapped a few times, softly. Who knew the frog-boy could be so eloquent?

"Gut... Gut. I'm sure their souls can be at rest now." He bent down, and smoothed some earth over the hole. He stood again, and started to say something, when voices sounded in the woods behind him. "Kuuurt!! Like, where are you?!" .... "Kurt, are you okay?" ... "I can smell you, elf. Thought you could skip your trainin' session today? Well you got another thing comin, bub!" Kurt's eyes widened with shock. "Y-you'd better leave now, Todd. The other X-men wouldn't be happy to find you here! I... uh... I'll see you around, I guess...." With that, he turned, and leapt off into the woods in the direction of the voices.


	3. Chapter 3 The Best at what I Do

Hey guys! Sketchy and Kchuu here again. How you folks diggin' the daily updates? Thanks for all the great reviews; we really appreciate your kind words! In this chapter, Sketchy didn't get to play her beloved Todd, but instead knocked Scott and Logan out of the park!! Kchuu played Kurt and Kitty. Stay tuned for the next chapter, coming to an internet near you tomorrow!

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Kurt jumped through the woods. He didn't want to risk 'porting, not after that.... fiasco, with Todd.... He eventually saw the three X-Men who had been searching for him. Kitty, Scott, and -ulp- Logan... He straightened his shirts, _Vhy didn't I vear my costume under my hologram today.....?!_, wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand, and jogged over to them.

"H-hallo everyone..."

Scott was concerned. Kurt hadn't shown up for the danger room session, and as much as Kurt complained about them, he still always came on time. So he had asked Jean to track Kurt down with her powers, and to his suprise it turned out that Kurt was in the woods by the Institute. Jean had also said that Kurt wasn't responding to her mental touch, meaning he was passed out. So he had grabbed Kitty (the only one who wasn't exhausted from the danger room session) and Logan to help him track Kurt down. After only two minutes of searching, Kurt had finally responded. Scott let out a sigh of relief at seeing the younger X-man apparently unharmed, but couldn't help feeling a bit annoyed as well.

"Where were you Kurt? You're over half an hour late! And why are you out here in the woods anyway?"

Kurt's mind raced. "Uhm.... Vell.... There vas a little bit of a--" His sublimely eloquent sentence was cut off by a higher voice. Kitty Pryde's eyes flashed adamantly as she started in.

"We were, like, really worried about you, Kurt! Jean told us that you were like, not responding to her mental messages! Were you passed out or something?" Kitty sounded mad, but her true feelings were betrayed by the hint of concern in her voice.

"Vell... I... uh.... got in a little fight, I guess..."

Logan raised an eyebrow, "A fight, who with elf?" He stopped and sniffed the air, and a sudden rush of a very familiar musk hit him, "Ugh, never mind. What'd that Tolensky kid want with yah?"

Scotts eyes widened under his visor, and he turned back to Kurt, "Toad? What happened Kurt, was Todd giving you trouble or something?"

Kurt struggled for an answer. He didn't want them to beat Todd up or anything! I mean, he was their enemy, but he didn't deserve to get a pounding just to protect Kurt's reputation.....

"Vell, it vas nothing too major... You know zose Brotherhood boys, always looking for trouble!" He looked at Kitty, hoping for some sympathy. Everyone in the Xavier Institute knew about the flouncy teen's on-again, off-again relationship with the Brotherhood's second-in-command, Lance Alvers.

"Well Kurt..." Kitty started, looking a little unsure, "If it's just the way you and Todd normally fight, you know, like a little spat or something, I get that... But you were _unconscious_!! And... you look pretty ruffled, to be honest...." Kurt knew he must look like a bit of a wreck... hair messed up, mud on his clothes, smelling like a dead frog... and smelling like a boy for whom a once-a-month shower was regular....

"If he tried to hurt you Kurt, then it's not just something we can ignore." Scott folded his arms over his chest and looked Kurt in the eyes. By the way Kurt was fidgeting, Scott knew something was up. "There's something you're not telling us, isn't there? Did Toad do something weird?" Scott knew that Kurt could be sensitive about some things, especially to do with how he looked. Something as simple as even name-calling could put Kurt in some real pain, so Scott tended to be a little overprotective of him. If Toad had knocked out Kurt, while near the institute, and Kurt didn't want to talk about it....Well, any explanation Scott could come up with didn't make sense, but it couldn't be good.

"Ach, I... I guess I'm just feeling a little off because I teleported too much... You know, I feel pretty sick vhen I teleport two people a lot.... so....uhm.... I'm going to go to my room now...." Kurt began walking quickly towards the house, and looked back, waving his hand in a dismissive way. "I promise I'll make it to ze next danger room session, okay?" His crooked smile (while very cute) wasn't a very good mask for the way he was feeling.

"Uh, sure Kurt, but if you need to talk or something, you know where I am." Scott gave a puzzled look towards Kitty, and she just shrugged. The two then headed back towards the danger room, leaving Logan standing there with a frown on his face.

Five minutes later Logan was walking down the halls of the institute, silently counting the doors as he searched for Kurt's. Logan usually tracked people down by smell alone, but the huge mansion was constantly overrun by hormone filled teenagers, and Logan prefered to save his nose the torture of that whenever possible. So instead of that he had memorized the huge house and assigned each room a number, the elf's room was door thirty two. Finally reaching the desired count of doors, he gave a short knock on the wooden barrier. "Hey elf, I'm coming in."

Kurt's muffled voice came from inside. "Vhat do you vant...?" He was sitting on his twin bed, wearing some clean pajamas. His red-flannel-covered knees were up at his chest, and his fuzzy blue arms, exposed by the white tank-top, clutched a pillow that he was smooshing his face into. His hair and fur were still slightly damp from the all-too-necessary "feel-clean" shower, and his tail lay in a loose curve around his feet.

Logan opened the door, poking his head through first to make sure the boy was decent. Satisfied that he wasn't interrupting anything private, he walked into the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. "We need to talk."

"Vhat do you vant from me--LOGAN?!" Kurt's face jolted up from the pillow, and his tail twitched into a straight bolt of surprise. "I... I'm really sorry I missed today's training but you see I just took a shower, so, uhm, now might not be the right time to..."

Logan frowned. He was used to people being intimidated by him, lots of people were at some point (most of them never grew out of it), so it didn't bug him. What DID bug Logan was the scent coming off of Kurt. Logan could read scents like Xavier could read minds, and Kurt's scent screamed 'Go away, I want to be alone!'. That wasn't an unusual scent for some people, but it sure was for Kurt.

"We both know that your story doesn't check out Fuzzball, what really happened between you and the Tolensky kid?"

Kurt's face fell. His shoulders fell. His whole body visibly slumped as the boy averted his eyes from the gruff man.

"Ve just got in a little tiff, that's all... you know how it is vith nemesises, right? Nothing more than a little fight, that's vhy ve vere close to each other and that's vhy I blacked out..." Kurt's thick fingers fidgeted, and his tail twitched nervously.

Logan sighed and put one of his hands through his hair, avoiding looking at the teen for a moment. "Look Kurt, Everyone gives off certain hormones at certain times. Some for when yer angry or fighting, some when yer stressed or upset, and some are for attracting other people who you wanna get 'closer' to." Logan looked back at Kurt, who was still holding himself defensively, and was now giving off a scent of fear and embarrassment. "When we found you, you were givin' off the last two."

Kurt's eyes remained downcast for a moment, his face turning crimson under the fur. Slowly, he looked back up at Logan, and his yellow eyes were shiny with tears. He swallowed a lump in his throat, and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened his eyes, he seemed more calm.

"Todd... vas very upset, because ve vere supposed to dissect some frogs, so... So ve rescued them, and gave zem a proper burial, but... I must've teleported too much in a short period of time, so I blacked out... and vhen I voke up.....Ach..!!" Kurt thrust his head back into his pillow furiously with an utterance that sounded like "since I vas fucking twelve..."

Logan blinked, the elf never used that kind of language, and ...since he was twelve? "What, 'since you were twelve?'" Logan growled.

Kurt moved to a sitting position on the edge of his bed, halfheartedly shoving the pillow to the floor. He stood, suddenly unable to sit still any longer. He paced over to the mirror, and then back towards the bed, eyes never leaving the ground. Finally, leaning heavily on the bedpost, he looked over his shoulder at the older mutant.

"Logan.... I'm gay." He flinched instinctively, scrunching his eyes closed and wrinkling his nose. After a moment, he looked away, face still tense.

Logan froze. Christ, why couldn't Ororo or Chuck be here to do this? Logan was good at a lot of things, but being an advice and comfort giver was not one of them. He walked over to Kurt, still leaning on the bed, and put a hesitant hand over the boys shoulder, "It's okay elf, nothing wrong with that."

Kurt flinched hard at the man's touch. Still not looking at him, he said in a strangled voice that was closer to a moan than a whisper, "P-please don't tell zeh others.... If the rest of zeh X-men knew that I -kissed- Todd Tolensky--"

Logan blinked again, Kurt had kissed Tolensky? That explained quite a bit, and if combined with the half-hearted, but ringing true, frog story from before then most of it fit together. Most of it, but not all. The real issue at the moment was how Kurt was practically in tears with shame, Logan barely had to breathe to smell the scent of misery coming off of the boy... This must be hard for him to confess to.

"My lips are sealed elf, but you wanna tell me how this kissing thing happened?"

Kurt flinched even more against the bedpost, his tail tightly between his legs. He said nothing, but his shoulders shook. Every part of his body seemed to be shouting his fear.

Logan sighed, he doubted he would get much else out of the boy while he was like this. Logan removed his hand from Kurt's shoulder and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Kurt, you know that everyone here's not gonna turn on you for something like this. Heck, I couldn't care less if you were gay, straight, or had a bizzare attraction to squirrels." Logan paused and gave a smirk, "Well, I guess I'd be a bit weirded out by the last one. The point is, you don't have any reason to be ashamed of yerself. You are who you are kid."

Kurt let out a little chuckle. Logan was gruff, but he could be kind... and pretty funny, too. He sat next to the older man, dangling his legs off the bed.

"I'm just... I'm just afraid that.... Todd might like me, and I... I might like him, too. I always tried to chase girls so that I'd seem more normal... I mean, what's weirder than a fuzzy blue queer, huh?" He smiled weakly. "And I mean... it's TODD... The Toad.... that's like, If you and Sabretooth were secretly getting it on, you know?"

Logan immediatly tensed up at that last part. He turned to glare at Kurt, a look of half-concealed irritation on his face.

"Kid, believe me, you an 'Todd' are more likely to elope in the next ten seconds than I am to ever consider Sabretooth as a..." Logan just growled after that, the very idea of what the fuzzy elf said was enough to make him want to go beat the sand out of every single punching bag he owned (and that was quite a few). Logan forced himself to calm down, throwing out that thought from his mind. He turned back to Kurt, "So is the fact that you kissed the frog kid what's bugging you? Or the fact that you want him to like you?"

"Ach... I guess it's more of zeh latter, really..." Kurt seemed more relaxed, annoying Logan seemed to have lightened his mood. "It vasn't a kiss so much as.... Unnecessary CPR." He chuckled slightly. He turned his face to Logan, looking the older man straight in the eyes. "So... You promise vhat I told you doesn't change anything? Just because I told you doesn't mean I'm out of the closet or anything... I mean, Kitty'd certainly be dissapointed--you know how chicks dig the fuzzy dood!"

_Unnecessary CPR? How did_--... Never mind, he didn't need to know all the little details of the blue teen's love life.

Logan got up off the bed, putting his hands in his pockets. "Heh, Won't change anythin' between us two, elf. An' like I said, I'm not telling anybody, so half-pint can just live in sweet ignorance for now." Logan started for the door, but stopped halfway, turned to Kur,t and said, "But Fuzzball, I think you need to tell Chuck about this."

Kurt's eyes widened. He did NOT want to admit this to anyone... it was hard enough telling Logan, and the guy had practically forced it out of him. He bent, and grabbed his beat-up pillow off the ground.

"You're right... I'll... I'll tell him.. Vhen I feel up to it, okay?" As the older mutant started to leave, Kurt added hastily.

"Danke, Logan..."

Logan frowned, he could smell that Kurt didn't really mean what he said. But he just shrugged, "Okay elf, when you're ready. G'night." Logan exited the room, closing the door behind him. He left thinking to himself that if Kurt was fine with keeping that information from Chuck, then he was fine with keeping from Kurt the fact that he had smelled signs of Todd being attracted to him mixed in with the Brotherhood boys usual scent. 


	4. Chapter 4 It's Called BISEXUALITY!

Hello, all! Time for another chapter of your daily dose of Kodd! Thanks for all the reviews, you guys rock!! In this chapter, since Kchuu can't play her beloved Kurt, she gets to play her beloved Pietro. And Sketchy, as always, is Todd. We hope you enjoy the machinations of the silver-haired speed-demon and Todd-trying-to-forget-he's-gay. Enjoy! Next chapter is the last one.

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Todd had managed his way home after Kurt abruptly left. His shoulder still hurt like hell, and he couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't noticed the pain when he had caught Fuzzy earlier, when the other boy had almost fallen. Todd kicked open the already broken front door of the boarding house, not bothering to close it, they had no AC to let out anyway. Taking a detour to the kitchen, Todd started the faucet with one still-cracked and bleeding hand. Fuzzy may have helped the problem earlier with his tongue, but he didn't solve it. Todd let the water run over his hands, giving a sigh of relief as they soaked up the moisture. He listened for any signs of the others, the floor creaking that Freddy's weight caused, or the pluck of guitar strings that Lance would play in his room, or that whoosh that was...Now coming his way...

Pietro's expensive running shoes screeched to a stop behind the bleeding boy.

"Hey what's up Toad?" Pietro said in his usual super-quick way. "I was just headed for the kitchen to grab my fifteenth cup of coffee this hour hey what happened to your hand, Toad?" The sight of Todd's blood in the sink caused the silver-haired boy to slow down his speech enough for someone to actually get a word in edgewise. "Did you get in a fight or something?"

Todd gave his over active teammate a sneer, "No, not a fight, I jus' had a disagreement with my good friend Mr. Dissect-me, just a stupid argument about bathing in formaldehyde."

"Oh yeah the bio classes were doing dissections today weren't they ... Hey I heard someone stole all the frogs from the remedial class, that you? Pretty impressive dude but if you had asked for my help I coulda done it in about a quarter of a second... If I felt like touching dead things or helping out a loser." Pietro jeered at the boy, half joking and half in his truly condescending manner.

Todd turned off the faucet, hands now fully re-hydrated, and turned to face the silver haired annoyance that was Pietro.

"Yeah right, you wouldn't even bother then. You'd freak out just by looking at one of those corp-GAH!" Todd clutched his left shoulder; the mere act of turning around had moved whatever muscle he had hurt earlier. To say the least, it did NOT feel pleasant.

Pietro looked quizzically at the groaning mutant.

"Hey what happened to your arm, man? Fell out of a tree? Got in a fight? Sports injury?" Pietro whizzed over to the refridgerator and back, too fast to see, and handed Todd an ice pack. "Nah no one wants to play sports with you so that one's out. So what was it, slimy? Or froggy got your tongue?"

Todd snatched the ice pack and pressed it to the pained area, slowly relaxing his tensed up shoulders.

"Nah yo, fell off a second story window. I woulda broke my fall just fine if I didn't hafta make a show of it for that damned biology teacher and her bio rejects."

"Hafta make a show? You always love being in the center of attention Tolensky don't deny it!" Pietro's eyebrow twitched slightly, and then his face broke into a doubting smirk. "Hey if you fell out of a building how exactly did you pull a muscle in your shoulder like that?" Pietro looked Todd's shoulder over quickly, and prodded it a few times with a delicate finger. He knew injuries, and this one seemed more than a little fishy for a fall. "With the way you pulled it it looks like somebody fell on top of you! I mean just last week our backup point guard Puckerman got flattened by this other guy and his shoulder looked just like yours..." Pietro's words faded into a babble about trivial details of that basketball game.

Todd smirked at Pietros 'center of attention' line. 'Tro hated it when anyone else had the spotlight. Todd was contemplating whether he should make a huge deal of the frog rescue to get under Pietro's skin, when the the speedy mutant poked the offending muscle and mentioned 'fell on top of you'. Todd froze up, he had thought that the shoulder thing was from the fall, not Fuzzy! He threw on his best fake smile and tried to bluff his way out of the situation.

"Dunno yo, maybe my shoulder's diffrent from yo' shoulder, dawg."

"Yeah well half-frog or not a shoulder is a shoulder and I know what one looks like when it's hurt. I mean of course no one is fast enough to foul me on court but I know it when I see it when someone's been fouled pretty bad so why are you getting so defensive, huh, Toad?" Pietro leaned even closer, his never-ending disregard for other people's personal space becoming more and more apparent with each passing sentence. "Who was it who fell on you? Something you don't wanna share?"

Todd couldn't help but try to shift away from the ever-invader of personal space that was Pietro. Taking a step back, Todd chuckled nervously,

"Well yah know, I needed sum help getting those frogs outta the classroom, so me an' my partner in crime ended up making a great getaway, and I guess we both kinda fell over one another." Todd realized a moment too late that he had yet to actually admit to stealing away the frogs.

Pietro laughed and took another step forward, enjoying the way his teasing was making the younger boy squirm.

"Partner in crime? Dude who helped you pull this one off? Lance was with me all afternoon spray painting the wall beside the post office and if Freddy fell on you... let's just say that more than your shoulder would be hurting." Pietro cocked his head, a look of genuine interest on his face. It took a lot for him to keep standing there for so long, especially when he had just wanted some coffee and to get back to watching the Wizards game on tv. "So who's this new chick?" Pietro knew that Todd was awfully fond of assigning names to girls of interest, anything from "that blondie hottie" to "babycakes"... So who was this "partner-in-crime"?

Todd paused, deep in thought for a moment. Pietro thought it was a chick? Fuzzy sure was feminine some times but-. Todd's thoughts suddenly lept to how Kurt's rough tongue had been gently licking his hand less than an hour ago. Todd could feel his cheeks start to burn, and he decided that it might be for the best if Pietro just kept thinking it was a girl.

"N-no one you'd care 'bout, yo." Todd shifted his gaze to the floor. God he just wanted to get out of here. "It's over now anyway, so if ya don't mind, I'll just be goin' to my room now."

Pietro leaned down so his face was exactly Todd's level. So close, he was looking right into the frog kid's eyes. So close, their noses were almost touching. So close... Pietro's nose wrinkled. The smell was disgusting. Somehow smelling like a swamp, sweat, _and_ too-strong cleaning chemicals. Oh, Pietro cared. He cared very much about what kind of self-respecting girl would get within a mile of this slimeball. "Oh no, Tolensky. You're not going anywhere until you tell me about this girlfriend of yours." He said with a grin. "I wanna know the chick who'll steal some frogs, fall out of a two story window and be unhurt.... and get within a 10-foot radius of YOU. This girl can't be normal!"

"I-I-" Todd didn't know what to say, he was stuck. Pietro wasn't gonna stop pestering him until he told him something. Who WOULD do that frog saving thing with him? Someone weird? Someone different? Someone that Pietro would have no interest in whatsoever would be nice. "I-It was that Risty chick! You know, the one Rogue hangs around with." That was close enough to weird, different, and Pietro-no-likey enough for Todd.

Pietro took a couple steps back, much slower than usual, which was still faster than average. A look of contemplation passed over his features. Within a few moments, however, the usual smirk was back.

"Ha, figures the only girl who'd hang out with you would be a dyke! Haha! Hahaha! Here I was thinking there could actually be a female--a person--who'd like our Toady boy here like that!" He whizzed two feet to his left and started dumping brown powder into a microwavable cup (instant's the fastest, but still too damn slow!) and laughed again. "Funny, though, I thought I saw her leaving with Rogue after school to go to the movies. Lance and I were gonna follow them and mess with 'em a bit but he had some spray paint and you can't just let a good wall go without an annotation or two from the brotherhood!" He jammed his cup in the microwave and pressed a few buttons at lightning speed.

The kitchen fell into an awkward silence for approximately 3 minute and 15 seconds. Pietro tapped his foot impatiently, and whizzed all around the house at random intervals. Soon, though, the timer beeped and Pietro withdrew his coffee. He blew on it to cool it off, and something occurred to him.

"Hey Tolensky, you like that chick? 'Cause you went pretty red when I was talkin' about her. Thing is, though..." He paused to take a gulp from his super-pumped espresso. "You've never acted that way about Risty before. Or about any other girl, for that matter. I mean you've talked to us about those hotties you'd tap if you got the chance but you've never reacted like that to us talking about something and plus when you just said the girls name you didn't react at all what''!" The coffee was clearly affecting him already, quickening his words and his thoughts

Todd could barely make out what Pietro was saying, but he got the basic idea that his lie hadn't worked. "Well, uh, ya see yo I.....Ah shit." Dropping the ice pack, Todd made a dash for the stair case. Not that Pietro couldn't catch him, but at this point Todd didn't really think of that as much as _MUST GET OUT OF HERE NOW_.

Pietro let the cheap mug fall to the ground with a CRACK! Suddenly he was in front of the toad boy on the stairs. "Can't outrun me, Toad, nomatterhowhardyoutry!"

Todd's mind raced, try to run and 'Tro would catch him, try to fight and 'Tro would beat him to a pulp, that left one option. Taking a deep breath and moving that certain muscle in his stomach, Todd heaved out a large blob of slime all over Pietros face (and hair).

Pietro fell backwards on the stairs, scrubbing at the slime on his face in vain. He tore his mouth free, yelling at the frog boy who was now a hop, leap, and a jump up the stairs.

"Ugh! Man that was fuckin' GAY! What are you running from anyway?! Is that it? Was it a dude?! Are you fuckin' QUEER, Tolensky?!"

Todd nearly tripped over himself when he heard that. He gave a quick, hateful glance down at the flailing speed demon. The frog-like mutant could feel his chest tighten with feelings he didn't dare let out anywhere near his teammates. Instead he turned the feelings into rage, and shouted at the top of his lungs

"It's called BISEXUALITY, asshole!" before he leapt to and through the door to his room, slamming it behind him.

Pietro grabbed the last gunk out of his eyes (though it would take four shampoos before the grey gook came off his silver locks) and looked up the stairs in wonder. He had said those insults to get under Tolensky's skin.... Who knew there could be some truth to them!! A wide grin crossed his face. So Todd swung both ways? Now there was only one thing to find out. Figure out this lover boy's identity, and Todd'd never hear the end of it!!


	5. Chapter 5 I'm not queer!

So, here we are!! Last chapter =( Thank you all for reading and reviewing!! In response to your reviews/questions… One person asked if we were going to include any Lietro (Lance/Pietro) in this fic… Well, we both definitely don't mind that pairing, we actually like it, but in this fic, we decided it's best if we keep the Lance and Kitty relationship going on and off. (Even though Kchuu ships Kitty and Colossus like no tomorrow) And in this story, atleast, we don't think Pietro's gay—just metrosexual… Not to mention with a propensity to sleep with a lot of girls at once. Anyway, thanks for reading with us, and we hope you enjoy the last chapter! Warning: it's a long one!! Rated M for language… and a little violence ;]

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Kurt had pushed his chair as far as possible to the left side of the two-person desk. Normally he was able to survive the art period by scribbling with his thick fingers as best he could, and ignoring the boy next to him as best he could. But today.... if Todd Tolensky rolled into class, late as usual.... He didn't know how good his "best" would be. The night before, he had layed awake, thinking about the future... And he was really unsure about what to make of the Todd situation..... While he thought in these last minutes before the bell, he scribbled nonsense patterns on his notebook with a ballpoint pen.

Todd went into the art room deep in thought. Last night had been a nightmare, Pietro had bugged him for hours trying to get the name of his 'partner in crime'. And the few hours 'Tro didn't, Todd was trying to convince himself that he completely, totally and ABSOLUTLY did NOT like Kurt 'Fuzzball' Wagner. It was a mix of coincidences and teenage hormones, that was it. Todd grabbed the pre-made detention slip the teacher always had ready for him (always late means always detention, not that he went to it often) and headed towards his seat. It was only when he sat down that he remembered he sat next to the same blue fuzzball he was thinking about while not sleeping last night. He turned nervously to the other boy.

"Err, hey yo. Wolvie give ya any trouble?"

Kurt's head snapped up. He dropped his pen. As he stooped down to get it, he bumped his forehead on the corner of the table. Sitting up, he rubbed his forehead. _Geez man, can you GET more clumsy?!_ he questioned furiously to himself. He turned his head, half-glaring half-smiling at the other boy.

"My interaction with Logan went about as well as _that_ just did...."

"Ouch." Todd pulled his sketchbook out of his beaten up 'only for days with art class' backpack. "So he tried to kill you with a table, that's rough yo." Todd gave a half-smile, but refused to look at the not-quite-so-blue boy beside him. Todd didn't see a point in getting himself hyped up over Kurt's possible affections, after all, the dude didn't even swing that way, right? He flipped through the sketchbook to a blank page, "So whats good ol' teach have planned fo' us today dawg?"

Kurt, also avoiding Todd's eyes, let out a small laugh. _Verdammt! Why does it feel so natural to laugh with him?_

"Vell, the teacher says she vants us to focus on hands today... ve have to draw two pictures of our own hands, and one of our partners... Haha, go easy on the realism when you're drawing mein, ja? I know you're good at art, but--" He cut himself off. He wasn't supposed to relax this much! _Todd is mein enemy Todd is mein enemy Todd is_--

Todd couldn't help but give a full, if not somewhat short lived, smile at Kurt's laugh. It was nice to make someone laugh on purpose instead of a stupid mistake. When Kurt mentioned that he was 'good at art', Todd raised an eyebrow and chanced a look over at Kurt,

"Ya looked at my art stuff before? Never thought you would've bothered, yo." Todd snuck a look at Kurt's hands, he always thought they looked so wrong when morphed into five fingers instead of three. "Yah sure 'bout the realism thin', yo? It'd look better if it was your real digits man." Todd froze, had he actually said that out loud?

"You think so, huh? Big blue salamis are to your taste?" Kurt grinned and wiggled his fakey human fingers around his head in "neener-neener-neener" fashion. (He did not realize how wrong this sentence sounded at the time, but later he was overcome with regret. Hilarious, hilarious regret.) "But ja, I've seen your art! It's not half bad, but whenever I see you drawing alone, you use your toes... Are you better like that or something?"

Todd stared at the X-man. That sentence, the salami one, it was just so....

"Pfffffffff, are you, heheh, serious, haha, oh my god man that sounds so WRONG!" Todd started cracking up, nearly howling with laughter. He clutched his sides and tried to not fall off the chair. He didn't even bother answering the last question, he was too busy laughing his lungs out.

"V-vhat? I....." His eyes suddenly widened, and his inducer reacted to the heat sensors and turned his pasty human face bright red. He was immediately mortified, but couldn't hide his laughter for long. He and Todd were cracking up like guys who had been buddies for years! The teacher eventually had to come over and check on their (nonexistant) progress, so they muffled their laughs after that. But Kurt couldn't help but smile, a big, genuine ear-to-ear number, while he drew his hands.

Todd was STILL smiling, god that line was priceless! He'd still be laughing about it tonight. He was glad Kurt hadn't taken it the wrong way when he went into laughing sezuires, in fact fuzzy had laughed with him. Todd could never remember doing that with anyone before. It felt good, even right somehow... Forcing his attention onto his work, Todd tried to draw his left hand with his right. He was suddenly reminded of the question Kurt had asked earlier.

"I draw best with my left foot. Don't ask me why, just how it is."

Kurt answered immediately, without really thinking. "Ach, but that seems so hard! I mean, my toes are almost as long as my fingers and I still can't do that... But if you wanna see some real dexterity, you should see me with my tail!" He glanced over at Todd in a natural, conversational way.

Todd only then realized what he was doing, this talking and joke telling. He was FLIRTING with the X-man! That needed to stop right now. Todd glanced up from the paper, a frown on his face.

"Yesterday yah didn't want me mentioning yo' fur, now you wanna talk tail? Make up yo mind dawg." Todd flinched, he hadn't meant for that to come out the way it did, with that bitter tone he usually reserved for Pietro. He hadn't meant it to sound that harsh.

When their eyes met, Kurt's happy, open eyes and Todd's annoyed, almost squinting beady ones, the disguised mutant felt a chill. Todd was right, he had been being too open. It was foolish to think that one good experience, one adventure, one kiss could change anythin--that wasn't really a kiss! He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind, and looked back at his paper. Even through his inducer, his ever-expressive face, as usual, showed exactly what was on his heart--this time rejection and sadness.

Todd felt a pang of pain in his chest, he really hadn't ment it the way it sounded. But what now? If he apologized and tried to start the conversation again, he would end up flirting and set himself up for the dashing of hopes that would most definitely come. On the other hand he could say nothing, and they could very likely go back to being enemies or rivals. Todd turned back to his sketchbook, mentally making the decision to do his constant-first priority, self preservation. So what if he and Fuzzy didn't talk, no skin offa his back! They could just ignore eachother for the rest of their damn liv--

"Alright class, it's time to start on drawing your partners hands!"

Kurt turned towards Todd, a dejected, but more resolutely stubborn look on his face, and presented his left hand. The fingers were awkwardly joined, and looked very fake. He put his pen to the paper, and prepared to draw Todd's hands.  
Todd just focused on the holo-hand in front of him, trying not to look up at Kurt's face. He lifted his own left hand for Kurt to observe, suddenly remembering that that was the same hand that Kurt had licked the previous day. He could feel his face turn red, and his earlier resolution faltered. Self preservation? What good was that when all he wanted right now was to say 'sorry' and try to make Fuzzy laugh again? He sketched while having this inner battle. He needed to protect himself, that line goes there, this could be his only chance at being friends with Kurt, those fake-o knuckles seemed too round, friends isn't even what he wanted was it?

Kurt drew as best he could. He tried to make his eye follow the contour, not to focus that it was a hand, that it was Todd's hand, that it was the hand that had encircled his waist so naturally the day before... He tried to focus on the areas of light and shade. The gentle gradient running along the index finger, onto the thin film of webbing that ran to the thumb, that beautiful coloration of the smooth skin, skin who's palm was... tragically marred by the split lines of dryness from the day before. Some areas had healed, but most of the palm was a web of spidery scabbing. Without remembering their unspoken rule of silence, Kurt spoke,

"Owch, dude. Those cuts look like they hurt! Did you clean zem okay?"

Startled out of his thoughts, Todd looked up at Kurt. Fuzzy was asking HIM if HE was ok?

"Can't really clean 'em dawg, anythin' I could use to disenfect em makes things worse. Rinsed 'em off pretty good though." Todd fidgeted in his seat, suddenly hating himself for not apologizing right away after snapping at Kurt, but as hard as he tried now to say 'I'm sorry', the words refused to come out.

Kurt, still immersed enough in his drawing to drop his inhibitions replied,

"Wow... Do most cleaning products hurt your skin? Haha, is THAT vhy you don't bathe?" His mouth split into a roguish grin. For some reason, this discovery brought him joy. His eyes connected with Todd's again.

Todd felt sparks. "Ye-yeah actually." He broke eye contact, staring at his own hand instead, it looked pretty bad. "Soap's made to dry out skin, but for me it's like someone saps all the water out of me, it sucks. I tried that moisturizing body-wash one time, and it turns out that whatever doesn't de-hydrate me finds a way into my system, ever have lotion in your blood, yo?" He fidgeted again, looking up, almost shyly, into Kurt's eyes. More sparks. "'S not fun."

Kurt quit trying to hide his happiness. He was sick of hiding! Always hiding! Here was a person who got his jokes, who he didn't have to put up fronts with. Even if Todd didn't reciprocate the more-than-friends feelings... Wouldn't it be fun to have a friend like this? And it wasn't forbidden to be _friends_ with the brotherhood guys, Kitty and Lance talked on the phone most nights... _I vonder if Todd vould have to use the same phone as Lance... that could be..._ Kurt realized that he was still staring into Todd's eyes. He quickly diverted his eyes back to the boy's hand, and put his mouth back into the appropriate line.

"That must suck, man... And I bet the non-irritating soap costs a lot or vhateveh....."

"Uh, yeah, more than I can afford yo." _Not that I'd spend mah money on that anyway..._ Todd felt almost dissapointed when Kurt looked away, but finally he found the strength to say the words he'd been trying to get out.

"Look Fuzzy, I'm...I'm sorry 'bout snappin at you before." He dropped his gaze to the unfinished sketch on his drawing pad, and tried to think of something else to say. "'S just weird, yah know? Us bein, er, well, friends?" Todd looked back at Kurt hesitantly, a worried look plastered on his face. Was it ok to assume they were that much?

When Todd looked back, Kurt's face was already turned towards him, a playful half-smile on his face.

"I vas thinking the same thing... How it's odd that ve could have things in common. Who knew it could be fun talking to a guy I've hated for so long.." He shrugged. "Vell, vhateveh, it's done." He turned his drawing board around, and showed Todd the awkward scrawl in the rough shape of a webbed hand.

Todd decided to not say anything about the drawing, some times you should just keep your trap shut. He flipped over his own sketch, it looked like a bad hand, but that's exactly what he had to go off of, so it was all good.

"Same feelings about talking to you yo. Guess this friendship's official." Todd gave a big smile, for once one that wasn't fake. "I gotta 'hand' it to yah fuzzy, yo' digits sure are unique." In his mind, Todd was commiting suicide for saying such a horrably cheesy pun.

Kurt laughed. "I love puns! Kitty practically _introduces_ me by saying 'This is Kurt Wagner, he like, loves comic strips and puns.'" Kurt did a full on Kitty impression, complete with eye rolling and hand gestures. "I svear, she actually said that!" He tried to focus his mind on his anecdote, not the way Todd's smile made him feel inside.

Todd laughed, and his smile widened to a grin, "Well I'll try tah think up some more for yah fuzzy." He was about to tell every frog joke in his arsenal, when the bell ending the period rang. "Alright class, turn in your sketchbooks and have a good weekend."

Kurt stood up quickly, surprised by the bell. He started putting his stuff away.

"Wow, that felt like the quickest art class ever..." He said, mostly to himself, his mind thinking about excuses he could use to spend more time with his new friend.

Todd didn't want to go to English in the first place, and now that he and Kurt were hitting it off, it was the last place in the world he wanted to go. He got up and gathered his stuff, trying to think of how he could squeeze in a few more minutes with Fuzzy. He thought of one, and hoping it didn't sound too gay, he asked

"What's yo' next class yo? I'll walk you there."

"Ah.... Biology, actually. But I really don't feel like going today...." Kurt said as he walked out of the art room by the younger boy. "Hey, you can't blame me! I kind of disappeared from that class yesterday... Along with you. I think we'd better stay avay from there until that mess blows over..." Kurt hoped his excuse didn't sound too forced. He was really grasping at straws, even though he really _didn't_ want to go to biology... Especially not with Todd by his side. There was the teacher issue.... and Evan was in his class. If Evan saw him all buddy-buddy with Toad.... Well, that was one can of worms Kurt didn't even want to think about, much less open.

"Woah, you're skipping? Didn't think I was such a bad influence that it'd start so quickly!" Todd put on his pack and made a dramatic show of putting his hands over his chest. "Oh why did God curse me like 'dis? He an' computer Jesus just love to watch me suffer wit' dis power I have over blue people with tails!" He glanced over at Kurt, secretly glad to have him skip class, but he couldn't let the joke oppurtunity slide.

Kurt couldn't help but chuckle at Todd's weirdness. Computer Jesus? That was a new one. And...

"Your 'power over blue people vith tails'? You know another one?" Kurt was walking a half step in front of the other boy, leading them out into the wooded area around the school. "And I don't care vhat 'computer Jesus' thinks, I'm not skipping because of your bad influence." He dropped his pack by a tree _I'm skipping because of you...._

Todd dropped his pack by Kurt's, then let himself settle into a crouch.

"Well, if Mystique would just hurry up and grow a tail, then I'd finally be able to make her get the bathroom door fixed. I swear yo, she's a freakin' penny pincher!" Todd tilted his head a bit, contemplative look on his face, "So you saying you've skipped before dawg? Neveh would've pinned you as the type."

Kurt stared blankly at Todd. _This guy... lives with my mother.... this guy... is closer to my mother than I am....._ He had a sudden pang of hurt in his chest, like his heart was being squeezed. _Vhy would she vant to spend time vith these other mutant boys... and not me?_ His eyes stung, and then he re-focused. For once, he tried to set his mind on his potential affections.

"*kaff* Err, yeah, I've skipped before. Vhen I didn't feel like going, I'd always blame it on my inducer. And the Professor has connections at the school... and all that..."

Something was wrong, very, very wrong. Todd could see Kurt was upset, but what at?

"Hey, did I say something wrong yo?" He tried to remember everything he had said, anything that could have caused this, "T-theres nothing wrong with bein' a penny pincher, yo. Sorry If I hurt yo' feelings or somthin'." Kurt had no idea how sorry Todd was, his chest ached at the look on Kurt's face, but how could he have known that the guy was a miser?

The left side of Kurt's mouth pulled up into a little half-smile. "Haha, it's not that.... Your comment just made me think of something depressing." He swallowed a big lump of sadness in his throat. _Deal vith your mommy issues later, Wagner! The guy you like--A guy you li--This is your chance, dummkopf!!_

"S-so, vhat do you do vhen you skip class?" Kurt stretched his arms, and let his tail unwind from around his waist to swish around his legs.

Todd wanted to know what was going on with Kurt and the mysterious 'depressing thought', but he didn't want to push this new friendship too far so soon. Besides, Kurt's stretching like that made an awful good distraction... _Gah! Get your mind offa that frogboy!_

"Yah know, normal stuff. Go grab somthin' tah eat, ding dong ditch, go out wit' the guys to hit on random chi-" Todd immediatly shut his mouth, even if he had no chance with Kurt, that didn't mean he should talk about hitting on girls around him.

"Oh, so you guys basically just act like the delinquents parents vant their daughters to avoid? Ooh, Lance better vatch out or I'll tell Kitty's parents!" He switched off his inducer. "Alzough I doubt they'd freak out as much about her daughter dating a petty criminal than being best friends vith a boy who looks like the blue son of Satan!"

"Dude, what's your problem?" Todd got up from his crouch "It's not a big deal, it's not even serious! C'mon, I've seen you do the same thing with that Pryde chick." Todd took a few steps towards Kurt, brow furrowed in concern. "And who ever said anythin' 'bout looking like Satan? You look fine, dawg." Todd had to resist the urge to emphasize the word 'fine', but he was more worried about the taller boys sudden change in attitude than his desire to use pick up lines on said boy.

Kurt scratched the area above his ear, thinking. "Ach, sorry. I guess I'm just feeling a little off today. But you know, that's something the kids used to call me in Germany... "die blaue Sohn des Satans". Although some nicer kids called me 'Herr Indigo...' Yeah, I guess there are worse names out there, huh Slimeball?" Kurt smiled at Todd, leaning sideways to nudge him at the last jab.

Todd barely felt the nudge, he HATED that name. That goddamn name that the jocks called him after throwing him in the trash, the name that Pietro would call him when in his worst of moods, the name that his father....

"Don't EVER call me that fuzzbutt." He snarled, " If 'Dye Bla Sun dis Satans' is an insult to you, then 'Slimeball' is a fucking cuss word to me." A mere minute ago Todd had only been concerned for Kurt, but now his self preservation instinct had caught up with him, and demanded that he level the playing field. "What's your effing problem anyways? One minute you're fine, the next you're actin' like I just kicked your puppy! What, you on your period or something?!"

Kurt jerked back. And things had been going so well! "Hey, I'm not the vone who snaps and yells every two seconds! I vas just joking around! And... I used to call you slimeball all the time, vhy is it suddenly so bad?!"

Todd hesitated, he knew why he was so touchy, it was because he had decided to trust Kurt, something he rarely did for anyone, and now he was so afraid of getting hurt or making a bad move that he was defensive about even the little things. How could he tell Kurt that? The X-man wouldn't understand.

"I just hate that name, yo." He turned to face away from Kurt, "Makes ME think of sumin' sad." His gaze hardened, "And 'course I never let on that it bugged me, we were trying to put eachother down all the time! I didn't need you tah get this kind of leverage over me, I don't need ANYONE to get that kinda advantage. Life's hard enough as it is."

Kurt didn't really know what to do. Was it too early in the relationship for a hug? Would a pat on the back seem patronizing? His whole body buzzed with the desire to touch Todd; to comfort him. He knew how hard it was to open up to someone. Heck, the only way he'd ever made friends before was because he'd been put on a team with them. This was his first time going through actually getting to know someone based on a mutual desire for friendship. He placed his hand gently on Todd's shoulder. ... Not that he would mind a mutual desire to be more than friends.

Todd's whole body tensed up. He had learned to expect a lot of things after making a speech like that, but comfort wasn't even on the waiting list. He hated that he felt there was a punchline, that this could be some long drawn out joke that fuzzy had just felt like doing. He felt himself shudder as the three fingered hand remained at its post, and he was torn between the desire to lean into the touch or rip himself away from it. He decided to just remain where he was. Why was Kurt touching him anyway? A dozen of other questions flew through his mind, and somehow he managed to blurt out a very important one

"Why we suddenly decide to be friends, yo? What did yesterday even change?"

Kurt tried to pull back his hand. He really did. But once this connection was established, his body stubbornly refused to release.

"I don't really know... I guess I never really gave you a chance." Kurt smiled easily. "But it's fun hanging out vith you, surprisingly. Zis is my first time making a friend like this, so..." _Also I am gay and I have feelings for you!! I AM GAY AND I HAVE FEELINGS FOR YOU!!_ His mind was screaming, but despite it's best efforts, he kept it inside.

Todd turned to look Kurt in the eyes, feeling confused and unsure, "First time dawg? Wh'a 'bout all the guys in the X-ge-...Men. Arn't you friends with them?"

Kurt cocked his head, and looked to the side, before turning his gaze back to Todd's. "Of course they are my friends... But that's because ve're part of a team. I mean, I doubt Kitty'd even have looked at me twice if ve didn't live in the same house. And in Germany, most of the kids were afraid, or curious... None really vanted to be my friend all that much..."

Todd's face involentarily scrunched up. "That don't make no sense yo, you're yah know, likable. Funny, smart, and in pretty damn good shape." As he thought about this puzzle, he unconciously started to relax, muscles un-tensing and leaning oh so slightly into Kurt's touch. "Hell, who WOULDN"T wanna be friends wit you? And wait-" Todd started searching Kurt's eyes, a curious and somewhat wary expression on his face. "-aren't you and the Pryde chick, well uh, yah know. Don't you like her or sumin'? And she's just on the fence 'bout it cause a Lance?" _Well, that's how it looks to me yo, not that I'm right most of the time._

Kurt felt his ears burn at the complements. His first instinct was to jump back, deny the comments, and blow the whole situation off. But the tingles that pulsed up his arm from the place where he had contact... Did Todd just... Lean in? _Calm down calm down calm down_-- but his mind was going a mile a minute. W_ho vouldn't vant to be friends vith me...?! A heck of a lot of people... most normal people!... Kitty and I... VAIT, VHAT?!_

"Y-you think I like.... _Kitty_?!" He turned away, laughing, his hand (still refusing to detatch) slid down to Todd's upper arm. "Nein, nein! Ve are just friends! Kitty's great, but you honestly think Miss Appearances herself vould date a fuzzy blue dude?! Nah, she's more the type to go for a big Russian bodybuilder or something!"

Todd arm was suddenly on fire when Kurt's hand slid down to just above his elbow. _God, why do I hafta be bi? This is so damn complicated. An' at this rate, I'll be just gay instead!_ After Kurt's mention of Kitty, Todd looked at him with surprise, Kurt wasn't into Kitty? No, wait, Kurt had said Kitty wasn't into HIM. That probably meant the whole thing was one sided. Todd couldn't help but feel disapointed, and he looked away from Kurt.

"Yeah well, she seems tah like the bad boy type or sumin'. Not to rag on Lance or anythin', the guys like my big brother or somthin', but he's not the easyest guy to love. None of us in the B'hood are!" Todd looked back at Kurt, a false grin plastered on his face, "Heck, I'm impossible."

Kurt's heart melted. He couldn't resist anymore. The boy was just too verdammt cute! Without thinking, he leaned forward, pulling gently at Todd's arm. He smoothly pressed his mouth to Todd's. For a moment, his mind was totally silent. The world was totally silent. He felt... right.

Todd couldn't believe this, Fuzzy was KISSING him! Was this some kind of freaky dream come true? _Christ this feels good._ For a mere second, he responded to the kiss, softly pressing his own lips against the other boys. Then his brain forced a harsh reality down on him. Yesterday he had had a few akward moments with Fuzzy, enough to make him think of doing stuff like this, then he had let it slip to Pietro that he liked some guy, and then this morning Kurt suddenly wanted to be friends. Add it all up and it spelled one thing. _'Tro and Fuzzy got together on this, and are tryin' to psych me out._ Todd felt his face flush with rage and shame. He ended the kiss and roughly shoved Kurt away, yelling at him,

"Is this how you get your effing kicks?! Messin' with peoples heads?!" He backed away, fighting back the tears that his tightening chest warned him were coming. "Some joke man! I actually thought you wanted to be friends! Sorry for ending your little prank early, but I'm not-I'm- I'M NOT FUCKING QUEER!"

Kurt had been flying, caught up in the glow of the moment. And for a second, he actually thought he felt Todd kissing him back. And then it all fell to pieces. It felt like he was watching the scene from a third person view. _That's not me. That's not my body being pushed away. That's not the first boy I ever tried to kiss yelling... yelling..._ The cruel tightening in his chest brought him back to reality. It felt like his heart was being gripped by an ice-cold claw. Todd isn't gay!! He should've known... He'd seen the brotherhood boys hitting on girls, seen the hungry way that Todd looked at those women... He'd been a fool to think that the complements and jokes had meant any more than two normal guys having a friendship. He stood, unmoving, a look of hurt, shock, and horror plastered on his features.

Todd felt his chest constrict even more when Kurt didn't make a move to defend himself, did that mean it was true? All that laughing, the jokes, that gentle hand on his shoulder, those soft lips against his...All that was some kind of practical joke? Todd backed away even more, keeping his eyes on the ground ahead of him, and trying to ignore the tears leaking down his face.

"Y-your just fucking cruel man. Do you think I'm a joke or something? Shit, do you really hate me this much?" The need for self preservation was more intense than ever. If Kurt was going to hurt him, then Todd would hurt him back in any way he could. He raised his eyes to meet Kurt's, his own eyes now red, as they always got when he had these kinds of extreme feelings. He took a step towards the other boy, voice getting harsh and dangerous, "Well this prank goes both ways yo, how'd yah like me to tell the rest of yo' effing team that you kissed the TOAD of all people? How'd they look at you then Fuzzball?!" Toad took another step closer to the other boy, and snarled out, "Or maybe YOU'RE fucking queer, you Circus Freak!"

"I-It vasn't a joke!" Kurt managed to choke out around the massive lump in his throat, his voice more a sob than a shout. His mind worked furiously. Todd still didn't know he was gay?! But... But Kurt had kissed him! He didn't think any more words were needed.... But... Todd thought it was a game?! And... he was going to tell the rest of the X-Men?! Kurt didn't want that, not on these terms. "D-don't! They don't... They vouldn't understand! Scott gets on my case enough for messing around during t-training... If he knew that I was messing around vith one of the brotherhood--" He meant 'messing around' as a euphamism for the kiss they had just shared, but the second it left his mouth he knew he had made a terrible error.

Todd could barely see straight, for half a second he thought Kurt was going to deny everything, but that hope was dashed with all his others when the blue mutant ADMITTED to messing with him. Todd didn't even bother with any more words, with a scream of rage he tackled the other boy. They rolled on the grass for a moment, Kurt coming out on top for once. Todd struggled underneath him and tryed to land a blow on the other mutant, tri ed to ignore the feeling of Kurt's hands on his shoulders and all the goddamn lies they represented.

Kurt struggled to hold the younger boy down. They had done this dozens of times, but it was never like this... Never had he been so excruciatingly aware of the feeling of Todd's body under his. The feeling of Todd between his legs was almost enough to--_NO FOCUS ON THE SITUATION AT HAND, YOU DUMMKOPF!_ Despite his best efforts to contain the younger mutant, Todd landed some hard hits on his chest and face. With a violent motion, Kurt was switched onto his back. How could he show Todd that he was serious?! Not by fighting like this, that's for sure. Kurt, struggling against his competitive nature, let his body go limp, and looked up at Todd with a resigned expression. He could feel a black eye blossoming up on the left side of his face, but he ignored it, and lay still, waiting for more abuse.

Everything was blurry in Todd's eyes, salty tears that would likely dehydrate and crack his skin later were streaming down his face, and even when Kurt flipped their positions, his only thought was to hit the Fuzzball as much as possible. It continued for a moment, till Todd realized that Kurt wasn't even trying to defend his face anymore, or trying to defend anything. Todd grabbed the boys shirt, pulling him up to be face to face with him.

"DO SOMETHING!" Todd screamed, "FIGHT, RUN AWAY, STOP ACTIN' SO GODDAMN RIGHTEOUS WHEN YOU'RE NOT!" Todd started to convulse, racked with sobs he couldn't force back.

A single tear wormed it's way out of Kurt's swelled up eye--_geez, that must look pretty awful_--and he pulled up his mouth in the imitation of a smile.

"I'm not righteous, Todd..." Kurt looked at Todd earnestly through his one good eye. "I'm fucking selfish." He wrapped his arms around the violently struggling mutant, and put his face into the younger boy's shoulder. It was suicide, sure, doing some messed up crap like this to a super-powered boy who was already emotionally screwed over, but it might be the last time he ever got to hold someone like this... And reason be damned, Kurt was not going to pass up this kind of chance, not even for a hundred black eyes.

Everything just stopped. The tears, the sobs, the rage, it was all gone as soon as Kurt embraced him. Todd didn't know what to say, what to think, what to DO. He knew that even Kurt would give up on a joke if he was found out before it was finished, and everything he knew about Fuzzy told him that this was not a moment Kurt would try to joke around. Todd considered pulling away, but he just couldn't. Kurt's body fit so well around his own, it felt good, it felt RIGHT. He hesitantly put one of his own arms around the other boys back, not drawing him nearer, just touching for touching's sake.

"This isn't fair Fuzzy," he croaked out, "Do you wanna be friends, mess with me, or somthin' else? 'Cause I ain't got a clue of what you're thinkin'."

Kurt's reply was muffled by the younger boy's shoulder. He was holding Todd tightly now, not uncomfortably tight, but it was clear that he didn't want to let go. That arm around his back felt so right...

Todd's other hand somehow found its way to Kurt's head, tangling itself in the indigo strands, but not petting the boys head as the original intention had been. "I can't hear yah dawg." Slowly shifting his shoulder and the hand that was wrapped in Kurt's hair, Todd brought out the X-man's face from his shoulder. Only by an inch or so, but enough for Todd to try and find Kurt's gaze. "Yah gotta speak up."

Kurt grinned. "All of the above." He couldn't believe he was actually saying this stuff. "But mostly somethin' else." He let out a small laugh, which halfway through turned into a wince of pain from his bruised chest. He reluctantly let his hands slide down to Todd's waist. "If you... vanted to be just friends, though... If you didn't feel the same way.... I could handle that, I think...."

He couldn't believe it. Was Kurt confessing to him? To HIM? To the Toad?! This HAD to be a dream, or an acid trip, or he had died and for some reason God had decided he was good enough for heaven.

"I-I-I mean, y-you're serious?" He pulled away from Kurt for a moment to look at him, then hesitantly put his arms around the boys back. "Why, yo? Why me? And-" Todd gave a start, hands moving off of Kurt's back. "That means yer gay?"

Kurt let the boy slip away, but his hands lingered longingly on Todd's hips before he let them drop to his sides on the ground.

"Yes... Since I vas twelve.... But I've been too nervous to tell anyone, I mean, being a blue furry freak makes me an easy enough target vithout being... gay."

Kurt was baring his heart to Todd, and for once Todd felt like his self preservation was the least important thing in the world. He reached out slowly, giving Kurt time to pull away if he should come to his senses and walk away from this, he took one of Kurt's hands in his own. He looked away nervously.

"I meant it when I said earlier that I'm not que-gay." For a second he was sure he felt Kurt tense up, "I...I just never saw any difference between genders, yah know? If they're hot then they're hot. So I guess, I mean I'm pretty sure I'm bi. An' I guess I see gay and bi as different things, do you get that?"

Kurt was a few seconds from yanking his hand away when he slowed down and thought about what Todd was saying.

"S-so... vhat you're saying is... You like both guys and girls, ja? As long as they're... hot. So...." He didn't want to ask the question. His mind was hoping furiously, but he had been overly optimistic before, and gotten let down. _Oh vhateveh, I'm this far already, vhy not go all zeh vay..._

"Do you... dig the fuzzy dude?" He raised his eyebrows, and flashed his best cheesy smile.

"Well, that's not exactly what I meant, but-" He leaned in closer to the older boy, looking straight into Kurt's bright yellow eyes with his once-again amber ones. "Yeah man, I dig you a lot." Smiling nervously, he removed the small space left between them by pressing his lips gently against Kurt's.

Kurt leaned forward slightly, closing his eyes, and placed one hand on Todd's cheek. This simple, sweet, innocent kiss stirred up entire symphonies of emotion in the whirling maelstrom of butterflies that had taken seemingly permanent residence in Kurt's stomach. As he slowly began to open his mouth, the school bell rang. Kurt jerked his head back, shocked out of his reverie by the loud bell.

Todd snapped out of his new found happy place, his stomach had been in knots of pleasure during the kiss. Just as he felt Kurt trying to deepen that wonderful best-moment-of-his-life lip contact, the damn school bell rang. "Shit." Todd groaned, eyes glaring accusingly at the school. He guessed that that bell was the punchline. He turned back to Kurt, suddenly realizing that he had put his hands on the blue mutants hips during the kiss, and that they were still there. Quickly moving away, and blushing furiously, he tried to regain his composure.

"So, eh-hem, yeah. I guess this is more than friends." He plastered on a grin and took a long look over Kurt, from head to toe. _Yep, hot as hell._ It was then that Todd realized something. "Umm, Fuzzy? You're gonna want to turn the watch back on, before someone sees yah."

Kurt grinned sheepishly at Todd. "Vhat is it, then? Are ve...." He lifted his shirt slightly to coil his tail back around his waist, then beeped his holo-watch back on. As he did, he caught sight of the time. He had to be in Spanish in 3 and a half minutes, or Senora Martinez would give him detention... And as much as he wanted to stay, he couldn't afford to get in more trouble with the school--this biology mess was bad enough. "Ach... I have to go... Let's talk later, okay?" Kurt looked beseechingly at Todd. "Tonight?"

Todd smiled nervously, "Sure yo!" He fidgeted a bit, "So, do we meet somewhere, or..." He gulped and ran his hand through his hair. _Dang, this love stuff is harder than it looked on tv._

Kurt pulled on his backpack, and got ready to 'port. "Uh, you vant me to come to your place? I don't know if you should come to the institute just yet..." He laughed. "Remember last time?"

Todd gave a nervous chuckle at the memory, "Yeah, that's when we first met, and the first time we tried to beat eachother up." He was about to agree about Kurt coming to his house, when he remembered that a certain speed demon blabbermouth also lived there. "Um, my place ain't a great idea yo," _Unless you want every single person we know to be told 'bout us within two minutes._ "Could we meet here yo? Outside the school?"

"Outside the... School. Okay! Ve can meet behind the theatre building, they have a light on at night... so... Seeya at about 8:00, okay? That's the earliest I can sneak out.... Vell, seeya!" Kurt gave one last happy smile, then ported to a stall in the rarely-used second floor bathroom.

Todd just stood there, grinning like a maniac. _I think I just got myself a boyfriend!_

X x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x X

……….

Doesn't seem like a very good ending, does it… That's because it's not!

Please stay tuned for our sequel, Oversensetive, coming soon!! We wanted new readers to be able to pick up our story at any part, without wading through a lot of chapters. Each fic can stand on its own, but it's really best if you read them all ;] Thanks again for bearing with us! Hope you enjoy the next one, yo!!


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